A Drosophila Mutant with a Temperature-Sensitive Block in Nerve Conduction

A mutant, napts (no action potential, temperature-sensitive), is described in which axonal conduction fails at high temperature. Synaptic transmission at the larval neuromuscular junction is unimpaired. Larvae and adults are rapidly paralyzed at restrictive temperatures; they recover rapidly when the temperature is decreased. The mutant gene is recessive and is located on the second chromosome at map position 56

Unstable Equity: Combining Banking with Private Equity Investing

Bank-affiliated private equity groups account for 30% of all private equity investments. Their market share is highest during peaks of the private equity market, when the parent banks arrange more debt financing for in-house transactions yet have the lowest exposure to debt. Using financing terms and ex-post performance, we show that overall banks do not make superior equity investments to those of standalone private equity groups. Instead, they appear to expand their private equity engagement to take advantage of the credit market booms while capturing private benefits from cross-selling of other banking services

Modeling Job Stress Among Police Officers: Interplay of Work Environment, Counseling Support, and Family Discussion with Co-Workers

Existing literature indicates that various factors affect police stress. This article uses data from the ‘Work and Family Services for Law Enforcement Personnel in the United States, 1995’ downloaded from the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (‘ICPSR’) website. Respondents include 594 sworn police officers from 21 agencies in New York City. Using structural equation modeling, results indicate that sex, race, education, and tenure do not have a direct influence on total job stress, but have a direct impact on family discussion with co-workers, counseling support, and negative working environment. Rank has a direct impact on total job stress, negative working environment, and family discussion with co-workers. In addition, both negative working environment and counseling support directly impact police total job stress

Does Insider Trading Pay? An Analysis of Trading and Tipping Activities in Insider Trading Litigation

Purpose This paper analyzes trading and tipping activities in insider trading litigation decided by federal courts from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2014. Design/methodology/approach Legal documents from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, LexisNexis and Westlaw databases were coded to determine profile, patterns of trading and settlement outcomes. Findings Results of statistical analysis indicate that a defendant in both civil and criminal cases is more likely to trade on the information when he/she receives a direct, financial benefit from breaching his/her duty of confidentiality. The defendant tipper is also more likely to pass on the information to a close personal friend, business associate or family member. The average amount of profit of defendants in both civil and criminal proceedings substantially exceeds the average amount of their settlements. Originality/value This paper offers support for the rational choice model – insider trading is often based on rational calculations of benefits not only to the defendant but also to his/her family and associates. Although the threat of civil enforcement and criminal proceedings may possibly deter him/her from committing the crime, results indicate that the amounts of settlement in both proceedings are considerably lower than the amount of profits obtained from the offense

Gender and connections among Wall Street analysts

School of Accountancy Research Center (SOAR

Dual-Mandate Patrols: Multi-Armed Bandits for Green Security

Conservation efforts in green security domains to protect wildlife and forests are constrained by the limited availability of defenders (i.e., patrollers), who must patrol vast areas to protect from attackers (e.g., poachers or illegal loggers). Defenders must choose how much time to spend in each region of the protected area, balancing exploration of infrequently visited regions and exploitation of known hotspots. We formulate the problem as a stochastic multi-armed bandit, where each action represents a patrol strategy, enabling us to guarantee the rate of convergence of the patrolling policy. However, a naive bandit approach would compromise short-term performance for long-term optimality, resulting in animals poached and forests destroyed. To speed up performance, we leverage smoothness in the reward function and decomposability of actions. We show a synergy between Lipschitz-continuity and decomposition as each aids the convergence of the other. In doing so, we bridge the gap between combinatorial and Lipschitz bandits, presenting a no-regret approach that tightens existing guarantees while optimizing for short-term performance. We demonstrate that our algorithm, LIZARD, improves performance on real-world poaching data from Cambodia.Comment: Published at AAAI 2021. 9 pages (paper and references), 3 page appendix. 6 figures and 1 tabl

The Disintermediation of Financial Markets: Direct Investing in Private Equity

We examine twenty years of direct private equity investments by seven large institutions. These direct investments perform better than public market indices, especially buyout investments and those made in the 1990s. Outperformance by the direct investments, however, relative to the corresponding private equity fund benchmarks is limited and concentrated among buyout transactions. Co-investments underperform the corresponding funds with which they co-invest, due to an apparent adverse selection of transactions available to these investors, while solo transactions outperform fund benchmarks. Investors' ability to resolve information problems appears to be an important driver of solo deal outcomes

A Guide to Long COVID and Mental Health

A Guide to Long COVID and Mental Health A Guide to Long COVID and Mental Health This guide is intended to: Support Long COVID patients with mental health resources, tools and techniques that have helped others – though it’s worth remembering that not everything will work for everyone, and anything mentioned in this guide is intended to be used as a recommendation, not enforced prescription Help families and friends to understand Long COVID and its invisible effects on mental health, and how to start a conversation as an emotional support networt. Inform universities and places of work on what kind of help and support students and employees with Long COVID might need